The good fairy who had saved her life and turned her death into sleep was in the kingdom of Mataquin, twelve thousand leagues away, when this happened, but she learned of it from a dwarf who had a pair of seven-league boots, and instantly set out for the castle, where she arrived in an hour, drawn by dragons in a fiery chariot.  The king came forward to receive her and showed his grief.  The good fairy was very wise and saw that the princess when she woke would find herself all alone in that great castle and everything about her would be strange.  So this is what she did.  She touched with her wand everybody that was in the castle, except the king and queen.  She touched the governesses, maids of honour, women of the bedchamber, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullions, boys, guards, porters, pages, footmen; she touched the horses in the stable with their grooms, the great mastiffs in the court-yard, and even little Pouste, the tiny lap-dog of the princess that was on the bed beside her.  As soon as she had touched them they all fell asleep, not to wake again until the time arrived for their mistress to do so, when they would be ready to wait upon her.  Even the spits before the fire, laden with partridges and pheasants, went to sleep, and the fire itself went to sleep also.

It was the work of a moment.  The king and queen kissed their daughter farewell and left the castle, issuing a proclamation that no person whatsoever was to approach it.  That was needless, for in a quarter of an hour there had grown up about it a wood so thick and filled with thorns that nothing could get at the castle, and the castle top itself could only be seen from a great distance.

A hundred years went by, and the kingdom was in the hands of another royal family.  The son of the king was hunting one day when he discovered the towers of the castle above the tops of the trees, and asked what castle that was.  All manner of answers were given to him.  One said it was an enchanted castle, another that witches lived there, but most believed that it was occupied by a great ogre which carried thither all the children he could catch and ate them up one at a time, for nobody could get at him through the wood.  The prince did not know what to believe, when finally an old peasant said: 

“Prince, it is more than fifty years since I heard my father say that there was in that castle the most beautiful princess that ever was seen; that she was to sleep for a hundred years, and to be awakened at last by the king’s son, who was to marry her.”

The young prince at these words felt himself on fire.  He had not a moment’s doubt that he was destined to this great adventure, and full of ardour he determined at once to set out for the castle.  Scarcely had he come to the wood when all the trees and thorns which had made such an impenetrable thicket opened on one side and the other to offer him a path.  He walked toward the castle, which appeared now at